The Allan Hancock College Library is asking community members to help them document the historic times of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Allan Hancock College library in Santa Maria is asking community members for materials related to the COVID-19 pandemic as a part of a new historic archiving project.
“Over the last few months, the AHC library staff have heard stories of the resiliency, struggles, Herculean efforts, ingenuity and heartache our students and community have experienced over the last three months,” AHC Librarian Susannah Kopecky said in a news release. “We knew this was one of those times that needed to be documented, remembered and preserved for the future.”
In their effort to document these historic times, the Allan Hancock College Library staff is reaching out to local residents to submit their “thoughts, experiences and memories of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent shelter-in-place order, as well as photos, videos, essays, journals, poems, audio recordings, and other archival documents and materials.”
According to the library, “The concept of documenting daily life in COVID-19 dovetails with the library’s role in teaching information literacy. One of the central concepts in information literacy is the ability to recognize credible sources and to understand different types of credible sources, such as primary sources.”
The AHC library staff created an online form for community members to share COVID-related memories and materials. Users will need a Google-associated email account.
The online form can be found at bit.ly/achcovidarchiving.
“Everyone is reacting and reflecting in their own way, and we would like to hear from anyone who is interested in sharing their reflections,” said Ms. Kopecky. “Years from now, people will wonder what life was like during the pandemic, and we would like to be able to provide that glimpse of life for the historic record.”
Email: bmackley@newspress.com
